On the second day of Christmas, my horrid ex sent to me, Holiday in Handcuffs.

Hello everyone. This is Slick Dungeon and I am here to prevent you from seeing the worst of the worst of the Christmas movies. We’ve got 12 days of this in store for us so buckle up because these movies all stink.

Yesterday I reviewed Saving Christmas, starring Kirk Cameron. That film was terrible and while this one today is not quite as bad as that one, it’s still not one you should watch.

Here’s the plot of Holiday in Handcuffs. It’s the day before Christmas and a woman is stressed out to the max because she is interviewing for a new job. Her parents call and harass her about it, which results in a really bad hair day. She ends up late to the interview because of the hair tragedy and an immense amount of traffic. She doesn’t get the job. She is supposed to go to her parents house to celebrate Christmas. She plans to take her boyfriend Nick who she has been dating for a short time. Her boyfriend shows up at her current waitress job and dumps her. Then her parents call again fully expecting her to be on her way to their place with Nick. The woman, Trudie (played by Sabrina the Teenage Witch), panics and kidnaps the first guy she sees at gunpoint. Her plan is to have him pretend to be her boyfriend for the weekend and then they part company. The kidnapped guy, David (played by Slater from Saved by the Bell) had been in the diner to propose to his girlfriend. Through the course of the weekend they fall in love and everyone has a generally merry Christmas.

I had a few questions.

• Mario Lopez is like three times bigger than Melissa Joan Hart so why didn’t he ever just overpower her at literally any point in the entire movie?
• Who thinks the most romantic place to propose to someone is at a diner?
• David tells several people that he has been kidnapped but no one believes him because Trudie tells them he likes to do this as a joke. But really, I don’t think in actual life it would have been that hard for him to convince people. He even gets to a phone but calls his girlfriend instead of the cops. What? Why? What kind of a moron is this guy?
• Trudie spends the whole movie acting insane and so does the rest of her family but somehow David thinks this is great?
• When the plot finally goes belly up and the cops do show up to rescue David, they arrest the whole freaking family. Grandma included. But it was clear that no one except Trudie even suspected that David was the victim of a kidnapping so why the heck would they be put in prison?
• Of course we have to find out that there is more to Trudie but just because there is more to someone that does not really exculpate you from a felony does it?
• It’s pretty clear David’s current girlfriend isn’t really right for him but does he have to go for the woman who kidnapped him? I mean seriously I wouldn’t get over that.
• At one point David tries to escape. He is walking in a bit of snow but it’s not like knee high or anything. Trudie comes to get him with the car and says he has been walking for the last hour and has gone 1.8 miles. To which I ask, why is he such a sloooooow walker??? Trudie, dump this guy, he can’t keep up.
• David is supposed to be this super successful vice president of something or other but of course hasn’t followed his own dreams of being an architect so that he can live comfortably. In the end he does become an architect with his own business but it is never made clear how he got his start up money, or why he would suddenly have connections in the art and architecture world. David is clearly up to felonious behavior now too. I think he got that from Trudie.
• Also in the end David was supposed get married but he shows up and kidnaps Trudie, so they can be together I suppose. But here is the thing, Trudie sees in the newspaper that David is supposedly married now. You know what she doesn’t do? ASK HIM IF HE IS MARRIED NOW! I mean I think that is important information to confirm if you find your one true love. Am I crazy here? Wouldn’t you ask that immediately?

That feels like a good place to stop.

I will tell you that with these 12 days of Christmas movies, I am going to try to give you the antidote to each one. This one is about two people randomly getting together to fall in love over Christmas. I would call that Serendipitous. So naturally, the best alternative to this one is Serendipity. It’s not strictly just a Christmas movie but a lot of the best scenes happen during that season and really, how can you not like John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale? Plus you get Molly Shannon on the side.

That’s it for today but rest up because tomorrow we are spending Christmas with the Kranks and it’s going to take a lot out of me.

Merrily Yours,

Slick Dungeon